Out and about with Louise: external engagement (part 1)

Since my last blog we have continued to engage with a range of our external stakeholders. As the advisory panels develop, more of our external engagement work is also being supported by our member volunteers, our President, and teams within CIEH.

Our external engagement is focused on advocating for the profession and promoting the CIEH vision of a safer, cleaner and healthier environment for everyone. Capacity and capability challenges as a Board priority form the foundations of the conversations we are having with our stakeholders.

Advisory Panels (APs)

Earlier in the year we launched our Public Health and Port Health Advisory Panels.

EH is a diverse area. Our members work within equally diverse settings. Some members are strategic thinkers, others like technical detail. We cannot support all potential issues members would like to focus upon, so the APs are identifying three or four strategic objectives. This also enables us to make the most effective use of our internal resources and remain on track with the priorities the Board have identified.

Our strength as a community is to create a bold vision to create safer, cleaner, healthier environments for everyone which will be realised via the Advisory Panel structure.

At the time of writing, we are working on a restructure of the CIEH web pages so members have a clear view of the work of the panels and strategic objectives as these are developed. The Environmental Protection AP page will be updated first and the Public Health and Port Health panels are now online. CIEH internal policy leads are working to embed a new approach which is effectively empowering and enabling our members. Once strategic objectives have been locked in we will be handing over the leadership of the panels to our members.

The panels are supporting a refresh of our manifesto which means all our policy priorities are aligned, this refresh will be delivered in late May/early June. Furthermore, the Policy and Campaigns team have been working hard behind the scenes on developing our General Election strategy that we are looking forward to sharing with members later on this summer.

We recently announced that we will be commissioning an independent review of the design and operation of our panels as part of a process of continual improvement to place members at the heart of all we do.

Volunteers within our Advisory Panels continue to actively support our policy work and consultations which can be accessed here: consultation responses. 

Workforce Satellite Panel

I chaired our first meeting with a wide range of stakeholders to begin work on capacity and capability within the profession which is a strategic Board priority. This has been followed up by another meeting where the panel determined four top priorities as follows:-

1. The public health case for environmental health.
2. The economic case for environmental health.
3. Future proofing environmental health.
4. Accessibility of the profession.

We are currently working with panel members to collate case studies and data. A group is also convening to update resources for schools. There is a piece in this month’s EHN regarding the work.

External engagement

Other engagement highlights have included:-

• Parliamentary Reform Coalition Reception at the House of Commons.
• OPSS Primary Authority event in Birmingham which was an opportunity to meet members of both CIEH and CTSI. Here I met Helen Atkinson who is an active member of our Food AP and Toby Thorp from our Health and Safety AP for the first time.
• Dr Henry Dawson, Housing AP member spoke at a Shelter event.
• Met with Port Health AP member Tim Bage on the front line in Port Health at Tilbury.
• Met Adele Masztalerz to talk about her role as an EHP at London Wetland Centre.
• Continued engagement with ADPH in respect of their workshop which is linking public health and planning. Again we are advocating a health protection position and value added in respect of EH.
• Hosting the CIEH Health and Safety conference and attending coffee catch ups with members.
• Webinar with the International Institute of Risk & Safety Management which was titled “Environmental Health societal impacts and corporate risk”.
• Spoke on the Radio 4 Today program and BBC radio following a piece we contributed to in the Guardian in respect of the rise in food poisoning and potential reasons for this.
• The British Safety Council has approached us to write a series of articles promoting EH and the first one is here: Environmental health professionals: a vital armoury in protecting public and worker health.
• Keynote presentation in Swansea to the South Wales Safety Groups Alliance who are keen to collaborate with CIEH. The topic of this presentation was in respect of vision zero and sustainability.
• EH Wales AGM.

More will follow in my continued blog update next week!